Langill, asked when he decided on his unusual career path, is quick with the documentation.

“When you are 7 years old and never hit the ball in Little League, you are well on your way,” Langill quips.

Langill, 42, has been a Dodgers employee since 1994 and the team’s historian since 2002. The South Pasadena High School and Pasadena City College grad has seen first-hand a lot of Dodger doings. And he has read virtually everything in print about the team. Now that the team is celebrating its 50th year in L.A., Langill is getting to put a lot of that knowledge to use.

“It’s a great time to be part of the Dodgers family,” Langill said. “Oh sure, maybe the current team is in a slump right now, but to me, I don’t get too excited about the wins and losses. The Dodgers’ history is so rich that there is always something to hold my interest. To me, it’s more about the people and less about the results.”

Langill’s interest in the Blue Crew began in 1972 when his parents took him to his first game at Dodger Stadium. Was it memorable?

“You bet,” Langill said. “I don’t remember much about the game, but I certainly remember seeing Dodger Stadium for that first time. I still have my ticket stub. I guess you could say it was love at first sight.”

Any aspirations Langill held about playing for the Dodgers pretty much ended in Little League. But he still held the dream of joining the Dodgers family.

“Well, the way things worked out was pure fate,” Langill said. “When I was only in kindergarten, someone gave me a book, and it was Paul Zimmerman’s history of the Dodgers, published in 1959. Why someone would give a 5-year-old a grown-up’s book like that, I don’t know. Kismet, I guess. Then in 1974, someone brought me the packet of press notes from a game at Dodger Stadium. I cherished those, slept with ’em under my pillow and started to think that maybe I, too, could someday, somehow be a part of that.”

Growing up in South Pasadena, Langill followed the team in the Star-News and on radio and television.

“Never missed a Joe Hendricksen story on the Dodgers,” Langill said. “And, of course, who could ever ask for a better guy to teach you about Dodgers lore than Vin Scully?”

Following graduation from Cal State Northridge, Langill went to work at the Star-News as a sports writer, and eventually covered the Dodgers for the newspaper. Then, in 1994, came an opportunity to go to work for the Dodgers in the team’s publications department. In 2002, he became full-time historian.

“It’s been an absolute dream job,” Langill said. “There is no set formula for my duties. I have 50 years of L.A. Dodger games to draw on, as well as the team’s accomplishments from Brooklyn. Baseball is a wonderful sport to document because you never know what will happen. You can say such-and-such a record is unbreakable, and then someone comes along and breaks it.

“For example, Sandy Koufax was the only guy with both a no-hitter and an 18-strikeout game. Then along comes Ramon Martinez, and he duplicates that. So, as a historian, you just never say never.”

The Dodgers’ devotion to chronicling their history is a relatively recent development, Langill said.

“The fact is, the team didn’t hold an old-timers’ game until 1971 and didn’t retire a uniform number until 1972,” Langill points out. “The idea of the importance of history just wasn’t there. Fortunately, for me certainly, that has changed.”

Not only has current ownership encouraged Langill’s efforts, there is talk of a Dodgers Hall of Fame to be located at the stadium.

“It is in the planning stage, a long way from becoming a reality,” Langill said. “Still, it is an intriguing concept. I know one thing, the team has a lot of material here at the stadium to put in a Hall of Fame, assuming it is built. And there is that possibility we could acquire other material on loan. So it is safe to say that when the building is ready, we will be ready to fill it up.”

One item that won’t be enshrined in a Dodgers Hall of Fame is the ball Kirk Gibson hit for his dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series.

“No one knows where that ball is,” Langill said. “It is a mystery. The thing is, no one came forward that night with the ball. And you can’t tell by watching the video or from any photos of the event who might have actually caught it there in the right-field pavilion. So now, even if someone pops up claiming they have the ball, there is no way to prove it.”

Even without a Hall of Fame to stock, Langill is staying busy. He has written four books on Dodgers history. This spring has been especially hectic, with the team’s historic trip to China and the exhibition game at the Coliseum.

“There is always something to document,” Langill said. “For example, in my latest book `The Game Of My Life,’ I included a chapter on Nancy B. Haifley, the Dodger Stadium organist. Do you know that the Dodgers were the first major-league team to employ a ballpark organist? Nancy is the latest in that line, dating back to Gladys Gooding in 1942.

“Now, don’t say you don’t care. You know you do. If you’re a Dodger fan, you care.”